free will and karma

Cameron Reilly cjreilly at OZEMAIL.COM.AU
Sun May 11 18:15:48 CDT 1997


Excellent post, Dennis!

I have a few comments:

-----Original Message-----
From:   Dennis Waite [SMTP:dwaite at INTERALPHA.CO.UK]
Sent:   Monday, May 12, 1997 4:38 AM
To:     Multiple recipients of list ADVAITA-L
Subject:        Re: free will and karma

1) The explanation that the body-mind is effectively merely a 'bio-computer'
and is entirely subject to cause and effect is quite reasonable. However,
advaita teaches that buddhi, part of the mind (antahkarana), is the organ of
discrimination, which clearly implies choice.

Does discrimination imply choice? Feed data into a computer and it will discriminate for you, but is this 'choice'? Or 'programming'?


2) Recent discussions on the List have stated that, in reality (Paramartha)
there is no such thing as free will but that it appears to the ego (in
vyavahaara) that there is. After all, if everything were predetermined and
no choice at all were possible, this would be a licence to hedonism and
there would be no purpose or meaning in 'pursuing' a path towards realisation.

A common misinterpretation of 'non-volition' is that it is a licence for hedonism. But to say "Well, if there is no choice then I will act differently" is still implying that you have a choice over the way that you act.

3) It seems that, for the concept of karma to have any meaning, there must
be free will. If everything happens automatically, without any opportunity
to influence anything, then sanskara would just continue to accumulate
indefinitely and rebirth etc. would be certain. Karma yoga would have no
meaning since it would be impossible to choose to act purely in response to
the need, without any desire for results.

Karma is the law of cause and effect. This does not require choice. There is a cause - it has an effect - where is the need for choice? Only the ego desires choice. It says "But surely I must be able to control my destiny".

6) The school which I attend frequently refers to the 'Will of the
Absolute', a term I have always found difficult to understand. It seems
that, for the 'Absolute' to have any will it would have to be less than
absolute, perfect and complete, since the will would presumably have to be
for things to be other than they were or for something 'other' when there
is, by definition, NOTHING other than the Self - an apparent contradiction.
A recent posting on the list suggests that this concept is not in fact part
of the teaching of advaita but of Kashmir Shaivism.

I think this term is analogous to "the will of God" and is possibly used to refer to the "What-Is". This is not implying that God/the Absolute has free will, but that events move in a particular direction, and this is simply some humans' way of describing the universe they see around them. Because they believe themselves to have free will, it is inevitable they will see this trait in other forces.

7) In conclusion, it seems that there must ACTUALLY be no such thing as free
will. There seems to be to the illusary ego but everything is really
happening automatically with apparent choices only being made as the result
of past conditioning. Thus samsara continues ad infinitum until the Self,
which is always free, but has no free will, is suddenly realised for no
apparent reason. It could not be said that the Self 'chooses' to reveal
itself because that would again mean free will. It would not make any sense
to say that the covering of ignorance is eventually removed because that
would imply progress (and choice) on behalf of the body-mind.

Very well said!

Regards,
Cameron



-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/ms-tnef
Size: 5791 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: </archives/advaita-l/attachments/19970512/df0dfb34/attachment.bin>


More information about the Advaita-l mailing list